Hank Steinbrenner Talks Himself, Twins Into a Tizzy

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Anyone following the Yankees in the news for the past few months must be tired of hearing from Hank Steinbrenner about the possibility of a trade with the Minnesota Twins for young pitcher Johan Santana. It’s been literally weeks and weeks of the same mantra: “I’m in charge!” “We’re still open!” “Our offer was the best offer!” Even though way back on December 2, Steinbrenner set a one-week deadline for the Twins to accept his offer, it’s been dragging on and on. Since today, just over a month later, papers are reporting Steinbrenner as saying actually “there were no offers on the table,” we thought we’d take a little walk down memory lane of all of hisbluster:

December 3, 2007: “I’m not going to be played against the Red Sox. That’s not something I’ll do. That’s not something the Yankees should ever do, and that’s I think what they’re trying to do now,” Yankees senior vice president Hank Steinbrenner said Sunday. “So if they want the best offer that has been offered to them, then they need to make up their minds.” [Boston Globe]

December 8, 2007: “As far as the door being open, who knows? At this point, [Yankees pitchers who might be traded for Santana] Chamberlain, Hughes, Kennedy, Cabrera and Cano, they’re as close to untouchable as you get The only reason I made a point of a deadline on Santana was that I didn’t want to get caught up in the circus of the winter meetings. The purpose of that deadline was trying to get something done before the winter meetings.” [NYDN]December 15, 2007: “For the near future, we’re in a no-lose situation, to tell you the truth It’s up to Minnesota what they want to do and I assume they’re still thinking about trading him As far as what I’m going to do, I don’t know. There’s been a couple of brief calls. The door’s not closed.” [NYDN]January 3, 2008: “I think the Twins realize our offer is the best one I feel confident they’re not going to trade him before checking with us one last time and I think they think we’ve already made the best offer.” [NYDN]January 5, 2008: “Nothing is really decided at this point I’m still leaning towards doing it. There’s others leaning not to do it. There are some others that are leaning to do it also. Disagreements within the organization. Nothing major, but just different opinions. I’ve changed my opinion a couple times… I always told [general manager Brian Cashman], ‘I’m going to make the final decisions because when you’re the owner, you should.’” [Newsday]January 9, 2008: “There’s definitely still a possibility The bottom line is, it’s my decision, but there’s disagreement within the organization. I’ve got to keep everybody happy in the organization, including Brian… That includes my partner, which is my brother.” [Newsday]January 15, 2008: “It’s most likely that we’re going to stay with what we’ve got That always can change — of course, that’s up to Minnesota — but there were no offers on the table.” NYT]

So, let’s get this straight. Reading through the above quotes, we see “offer, offer, no offer” and “I’m in charge, I’m in charge, I have to listen to everybody else.” No wonder Hal Steinbrenner always keeps his mouthshut.